So the dust has finally settled after completing the arts festival, and all manner of art, scraps, and tools have retreated to their respective closets, corners and walls. Now it’s back to working on these cards. This work, “Nine Ladies Dancing” was completed almost two years ago which is hard to believe. It was one of the first pieces that came out of the starting blocks from the Twelve Days of Christmas project.

As you can see, the dancers are footloose and fancy-free and they look glorious in their bright colors. I relied on my comic book brain to create different poses so fortunately I didn’t need any references.

I also found this cool scripture shortly after I created this piece. It’s in Psalms and says: “You have turned from me my mourning into dancing. You have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness.”

Drawing and coloring on that paper was quite a task. It’s cold-pressed watercolor paper, and I used both watercolor pencil and watercolor crayon for the subject matter and background. This type of paper which is typically not smooth required a lot of work from a color blending standpoint.

As I painfully discovered, Nine Ladies was difficult to photograph, edit, AND print. In person it looks great and it is one of the most asked about pieces in my collection from potential buyers. So now I HAVE to do something. You will probably see me hanging around a Kinko’s somewhere in the near future hoping that they can scan the artwork and provide me with a decent image. Wish me luck!